I Put a Spell on You

A marvellously meandering, digressive study of the nature of love… Burnside has a lovely garrulousness that is distinctively his own… Exact and enthralling. – Tessa Hadley * Guardian *
[An] indirect, peculiar, consuming memoir… Full of wonders. – Kate Kellaway * Observer *
A wise and wryly glum autobiography written in a highly rewarding, pared-back style. – Martin Hemming * Sunday Times *
Captivating and unsettling… A work of scalding honesty. – Sophie Elmhirst * Financial Times *
Intoxicating… Remarkable… A long-player that resonates long after the stylus has lifted. – Brian Morton * Glasgow Sunday Herald *
Extraordinary, haunting… One reads this book and gets a very real sense of a writer who has thought through an individualistic and compelling way of looking at the world, one that does indeed cast a mightily powerful spell all of its own. – David Robinson * Scotland on Sunday *
Astonishing… Not just brilliant, but essential reading. – Grace McCleen * Independent *
Beautifully expressed and rich in ideas… Powerfully resonant. – Michael Prodger * Mail on Sunday *
Throughout this wonderful book Burnside shows himself incapable of a dull sentence or a shop-soiled thought. – Cressida Connolly * Spectator *
A scintillating and insightful ragbag. – Jake Kerridge * Telegraph *

John Burnside was among the most acclaimed writers of his generation. His novels, short stories, poetry and memoirs won numerous awards, including the Geoffrey Faber Memorial, Saltire Scottish Book of the Year and, in 2023, he received the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime’s achievement in literature. In 2011 Black Cat Bone won both the Forward and the T.S. Eliot Prizes for poetry. He died in 2024.

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